by Amy Myers
‘Giulio went to the mountains in the autumn of 1943. His banda mounted several good attacks, but did not achieve very much because of lack of armaments. Then in the spring of 1945 the British come, and arms too. The operations are getting bigger for there is more at stake. They needed to attack the Germans from behind their lines, so there would be fewer Germans to fight the Allied armies as they came up from the south of the country.
‘Floria was caught by the Fascists as she brought supplies up the mountain to the arranged rendezvous. She was tortured and shot, but gave no information away. Only a week or two later, Giulio himself was caught on a raid with his men. He too was tortured and shot.’
He paused, so I quickly put my burning question to him. ‘Peter Compton, the father of the dead man and owner of Giulio’s Alfa Romeo, was in the group at that time. Did you know that?’
‘I did. But patience, if you please, Jack. In the time between Floria’s capture and Giulio’s, Giulio made his way down to the village to find Enrico and ask what had happened to Floria. Enrico told him she had been betrayed, but he did not know by whom. Giulio told him that he was sure of the truth, and he wrote it down for Enrico. I have all papers, Jack. I have photographs. You can see them all. But here is what Giulio himself wrote. Here is the story of Floria.’
He went up to his living quarters and brought down a notebook browning with age but still readable. ‘In English I will tell you what it says,’ Umberto told us. ‘Giulio writes that Floria had been betrayed by one of his own band, who had only recently joined them. He must have regretted it, Giulio writes, but he too loved her and was jealous of Giulio. It had been Giulio he intended to betray that evening, but Floria arrived early and it was she who was captured, not Giulio. They had arranged to meet at a shack on the mountainside, but Floria came early and was captured instead.’
‘Who was his betrayer?’ I knew the answer of course.
‘The English officer, Peter Compton.’
I spent several hours with the papers he had laid out for me in his living room. Maria chatted to Umberto’s wife while I was oblivious to anything but what was in front of me. Letters, diaries, and photographs, much of the hoard irrelevant. Letters between members of the di Secchio family, letters to the Santoro family. I couldn’t take it all in. But I did read enough to learn what happened to the Alfa Romeo. Enrico heard it had been taken from the family and found out after the war who had bought it. That was how Peter had been clapped in prison to await a hearing. After the referendum that turned Italy into a republic however, Enrico was not in such a powerful position; the British managed to get Peter released, as he himself had told me.
What moved me more were the photographs. There were some of the 1938 Mille Miglia that collectors would give their all for. There was a photo of a young Enrico and Giulio in the Italian army at their barracks. One crumpled photo of Giulio’s banda after the war was won, and one – through serendipity – marked ‘Floria’ on its reverse. She was dark-haired, smiling slightly at the taker of the photograph – perhaps Giulio? It was a face with strength as well as beauty and I could well understand that both Peter and Giulio were in love with her.
Where to go from here, I wondered as I drove home. Either the Plumshaw case had no relevance to this story and the answer was to be found in the village politics, or the answer might well lie in the story of Floria. Could I really believe that Peter was so jealous of Giulio and Floria that he betrayed them both and then returned after the war to buy his car as the final vengeance? A vengeance that he was still pursuing all these years later? And yet Enrico’s story and what I had read in Giulio’s own words rang true. Peter Compton had not mentioned Floria at all.
By the Wednesday morning I was ready to face Plumshaw again. I had things in perspective now. With Jamie released, tension must have relaxed on Andrew Lee’s murder, though goodness knows what agony Lucy must be going through. On the Compton front, I was primed for battle. Nan should be my first target as he sat between the two villages.
There was no sign of him at Puddledock Cottage although his car was there. No answer to my knock, nor was he in the rear garden. He couldn’t be far away, however, so I made my way to the church where, if I was lucky, this might be one of his caretaking days. I found him carefully sweeping the path from the lychgate to the porch and he broke off readily enough.
‘I heard Jamie Makepeace has been released. Good news for the village,’ I began.
Nan considered this. ‘Not for whoever killed Andrew,’ he pointed out. I’d forgotten Nan tended to take things literally.
‘Any news on your cottage?’ I asked.
‘Why would there be? I’m staying there. That’s what I told the Comptons. They said they’d think it over, but there’s nothing to think about. I told them to take that special tea of Mum’s. It’ll buck them up a bit.’
I laughed, though Nan looked surprised at that. ‘Still see your job as peacemaker in the village?’ I asked.
‘Sometimes you can’t have peace till you’ve sorted out the war.’
‘The current war has run into a brick wall surely, with the burning down of the pub and Andrew’s murder. There are even rumours that Andrew burnt it down himself.’
‘I heard them.’ He picked up his broom again.
‘Do you believe them?’
‘Not my business, but George wouldn’t have done it. He plays hard but he plays fair. Jamie too.’
I couldn’t tell him about the most pressing problems in my mind – the car, the Comptons and Giulio Santoro – but I could express one in general terms. ‘What do you do, Nan, when you have a problem that is tricky either way and you don’t know whether there’s right or a wrong, but a lot hangs on it?’
‘I listen,’ he answered me predictably.
‘To both sides separately?’
‘Yes. Then let them talk it through together.’
‘And if they won’t?’
‘I wait.’
‘And if still nothing happens?’
‘Something always happens.’
Was that going to be true in the Compton versus Santoro story? Not so far. Nor was it as regards the village. Jamie had been released without charge. No one else had been arrested for arson or for Andrew’s murder, and the nameless face still refused to identify itself. Was something going to happen, as Nan said, or should I make it happen? I’d go with the latter. If Nan’s back seat plan worked, so be it, but I couldn’t afford to take that chance. Besides, in my deck of cards I might be holding an ace with Floria and it was time to play it.
I left my car in the church car park and strode along the manor drive. I tried my best to feel like a Time Lord coming to settle the disputes of nations, but if I succeeded there was no one around to be daunted by my approach. A cat looked up and continued to wash its paws, uninterested in my arrival, but that was all. I noticed that cars were parked outside the manor so someone must be at home.
No one answered the doorbell for some time, and the cat had a ‘told you so’ look on its face. Just as I was turning away, however, Hazel opened the door.
‘I’d like a word with Peter if he’s around.’ Not a very Time Lord type of opening for hostilities, but even a Time Lord would be thrown off course by the look on Hazel’s face.
‘What about?’ The sharp eyes and her small tense figure were fully alert although I judged she wasn’t hostile, only in gatekeeper mode.
‘Floria.’
She frowned. ‘Floria who?’
‘Peter will know.’ I played my ace, with mental fingers crossed that I was on the right track.
I thought I’d blown my chances, but, perhaps curious herself, she returned to me in a surprisingly short time. ‘Come in,’ she ordered, and led me to the same room as on my previous visit. This time, however, it seemed Peter and I were to be alone, to my surprise and relief.
‘Call me if you need me,’ she told her husband, banging the door behind her to make a point.
Peter Compton didn’t loo
k delighted to see me. The Pickwickian benign expression vanished right from the word go. ‘Sit down.’ He waved a hand to the armchair opposite him, studied me for a while and then barked: ‘Who told you about Floria? That painter?’
‘No.’
No comfort to him, it seemed. ‘Who then?’
‘The descendant of Giulio’s co-driver and brother-in-law, Enrico di Secchio.’
‘You’ve been busy,’ he remarked. It didn’t sound like a compliment. ‘Tell me exactly what you’ve heard. Forget how old I am. I’m not going to keel over so you needn’t pull any punches. I’ve plenty of punch left in me.’
I took him at his word, and related as neutrally as I could the story that Umberto had related, ending with: ‘He told me that the person who betrayed both Floria and Giulio was you. I also saw a document, apparently written by Giulio himself, which confirmed it.’
I don’t know what reaction I expected, but it wasn’t this. He didn’t move an inch. He didn’t seem outraged or even surprised.
‘Now allow me to tell you what really happened,’ he said. ‘I have the advantage of having been present. Enrico was not; he only heard Giulio’s false claim. It is quite obviously false. What possible reason could I have had for betraying Floria? I was deeply in love with her. If the accusation is that I had planned for Giulio to be arrested that day and by chance it was Floria who suffered, I can only say that that too is ridiculous. Would I have risked that, knowing that Floria was on her way to the rendezvous? If Giulio had been arrested thanks to me the enemy would have known someone else would be arriving and they would wait.’
A good point, I thought, as he paused, although that didn’t mean it was true.
‘No, Jack,’ he continued, ‘the person who betrayed Floria was Giulio himself, to save his own skin. I told you about the operation at Pontrémoli after which Giulio returned later than the rest of us. I thought this was strange at the time. He was either trapped by the Fascist militia or more likely had told his friend Enrico who worked with them about Floria. He was not a clever man. He bargained Floria’s safety for his own. Floria and the Mesola family from which she came—’
‘Floria was a Mesola?’ I interrupted. ‘She was Sofia’s sister?’ Why had this been kept from me? By accident or by design?
Peter was unfazed. ‘She was,’ he continued steadily. ‘The Mesolas were thorns in the flesh of the militia and the key to the whole Partisan resistance movement in the area. By catching Floria, they would have not only her family in their power but a lead on all the other Partisan sympathizers in the civilian population. Giulio arranged to set a trap for her; she was caught and shot. Two weeks later Giulio met the same fate – of course he did. He had played into their hands and it was only by luck that Floria’s family and the rest of us survived. We instantly moved refuge.’
This surely had to be wrong. ‘Why would Giulio betray her?’ I asked. ‘He loved her.’
‘Through arrogance and hatred of me. He was convinced he was vital to the banda and had been resentful of me from the start. When Floria turned to me rather than him, it was the last straw. I was parachuted in to lead his men, which was hard for him as he had been with them for well over a year by the time I joined them. It was hard for me too, even though I was the officer in charge and he was dependent on me for communications to Mission Toffee about supply drops of food and armaments. I knew I wanted to marry Floria after the war, despite the short time I had known her, and had told her so. Giulio, with his Italian pride, could not take rejection. When Enrico’s Fascist friends talked to him, he was all too quick to take revenge on me.’
‘Did he admit that to you?’
‘He refused to speak of Floria during those two weeks before he himself was captured. He was impossible to work with. He became a risk for us. Too much of a risk, Jack.’
‘Too much?’
‘He was a danger to us all, with his hatred of me. The banda could not afford to lose me. It was five men’s lives against one.’
‘Are you telling me …?’ I had a terrible feeling I could see where this was leading.
‘Yes, Jack. On our next operation Giulio led us from the front on my orders. I knew there was a risk that the operation had been picked up by the enemy. I sent him in first. A good method of ensuring one’s personal enemy’s fate, if I remember the biblical story of David and Bathsheba correctly. I betrayed Giulio.’
SIXTEEN
I have never fancied myself as Solomon but here I had to make a judgement on two different stories that converged at some points and were directly opposed at others. Both dated back roughly seventy years. Both were stories of love, betrayal and death and still as chilling today as they had been at the time. I tried to imagine myself in the same position, with Ricardo, myself and Louise as the absent Floria. I couldn’t do so, perhaps because the background of the Second World War was impossible to recreate for a non-soldier seventy years later. Europe at war had dominated centuries for our ancestors, but now was hard to envisage. Perhaps our great-grandfathers, grandfathers and fathers had felt the same way in 1914 and 1939.
The two stories I had been told could not both be true. There was no avenue for compromise here, and yet I had to go forward. How to find the right path? Did I side with Santoro or the Comptons or should I try to rise above both of them? I told myself that what mattered was not what had taken place in the Apennines all those years ago, but what had happened now. The story of Floria certainly lay behind the fake murder plot but how could it have led to the deaths of Hugh and Andrew?
The Compton case too had its forks, especially since Andrew’s death. Were the Comptons responsible for Hugh’s murder and Andrew’s, whether linked or not to the Second World War story, or had the village feud been behind both of them? Forks in the road don’t always have an escape route via a link lane if you make a mistake. Sometimes they wind round and round and round taking you further and further from the true path. It seemed to me I was doing exactly that on both forks of the Plumshaw case – unless of course I spotted that link.
A night’s sleep found me no further forward, until Brandon drove sedately through the Frogs Hill gates, with his sergeant, a nice-looking girl called Judy. Could Brandon be galloping to the rescue with some helpful hint? Apparently the boot was on the other foot, because he immediately wanted to know what I had to tell him about my Compton visit. He must have had wind of it, because I hadn’t yet called in to put him in the picture. I took them both into the garden, brought some coffee – which won me a beam of thanks from Judy – and began.
‘Run through that again,’ was Brandon’s immediate comment when I came to a halt on what I thought was a pretty good summary of what I’d learned from both sides. Judy, at least, had an admiring look on her face, which is always encouraging.
The second run through achieved little more with Brandon, though it’s always hard to tell with him. ‘Ancient history,’ he commented. ‘Can it really have anything to do with this case?’
I was tempted to say that he had obviously thought so when he ascribed it as a motive for Giovanni. I restrained myself. What I said was: ‘It explains the reason for the Comptons’ fake murder plan.’
‘Still old hat for the real one,’ he said. I wish I could add ‘dismissively’ after that, but it wouldn’t be true. He was being completely objective, and as I thought the same as he did I could hardly disagree.
Even so, I did mutter under my breath: ‘Old hats wear well.’
He heard me. ‘They wear out too.’
Judy giggled, but a stony face from the boss quelled her into silence and note-taking.
I made amends by sharing my fork analysis with them. ‘There could well be a linking road,’ I concluded.
‘It’s taking its time. Like the forensic results.’ Brandon stared at my favourite rose tree (Louise had planted it when I first met her). ‘Two murders in one village for two reasons is overdoing coincidence.’
‘Plumshaw isn’t one village,’ I pointed out. �
�The concerns of new Plumshaw aren’t always that of old Plumshaw.’
Brandon remained unconvinced. ‘A united motive does away with coincidence. Those Makepeaces had reason to do away with both of them. So did Nantucket Brown. All of them saw their futures being threatened. I’d have said that Andrew Lee was our man until proved wrong. That brings me right back to Brown.’
I couldn’t fault his reason. Nan stood to lose his cottage, which was his reason for being. And yet you can fit a Ford engine in a Porsche and it would still look right from the outside – but it doesn’t make it a Porsche. Nan sat in the middle of the two cases, like that ill-fitting engine. Strong hands like his must have put that engine into this case.
I won’t say the answer came to me in a blinding flash. I was still crawling along that left fork to new Plumshaw, and trying in vain to find a turning back to the right fork. I couldn’t find it. I was left with one fork only and that did not please me one little bit. Now the signpost pointed right, and someone stood right in the middle of the road. Someone I had overlooked. I’d overlooked him because – oh hell, for the worst of reasons. I liked Martin Fisher.
I felt a traitor. Martin, I admitted as I sat in the police car with Brandon and Judy driving to Plumshaw on Friday, had motive, means and opportunity. That didn’t mean he was guilty, but Brandon had got straight on to his case, and had already interviewed George and Jamie Makepeace again. This morning I had the call I dreaded. Half of me wanted to dash straight into the Pits and hide. The other half knew I had to accept his suggestion that I accompanied them to Plumshaw.
His motive? Try as I could I could not avoid it. Martin’s garage was independent, and not doing well. The new housing development could bring nothing but good for him. But a huge new industrial estate into the bargain would surely mean that Martin’s local garage would soon have competition in a major new chain garage opening up? Would he like it any more than Andrew? Andrew had been promised a lucrative future in the form of running the new restaurant, so Martin could equally well have had a bribe in the form of cash or even a new garage. But killing a Compton for it? He must have been torn. The Comptons were customers of his and he had been hankering after restoring the Alfa Romeo.